The proposed research is designed to study the effects of work on mental health in mid and late life. This secondary analysis if based on the recent findings of a positive relationship between mental health and work for women at midlife. Home-makers and working men are used as a comparative base. The etiology of this relationship could have an important impact on the preventive measures undertaken to void ill health for populations (e.g. women) who are normally at risk for mental illness. Characteristics of the job and the person will be explored as will three major lifecycle transitions: midlife, retirement and old age. Special attention will be paid to exploring racial, sociodemographic and cohort differences. Through this investigation of working women, men and homemakers across the life course, this study will offer potentially important advances concering the prevention of mental illness. Work, for example, may act as a coping mechanism to stabilize stressful life events and avert ill health. These findings should lead to the development of a model which can elucidate, especially for the new generation of working women, the relationship between work and mental health over the life course.